Vijoy Abraham

Academic Technology Specialist, Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS)

Stanford University

Vijoy Abraham is the Academic Technology Specialist for the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS) here at Stanford University. Vijoy has been with the ATS Program since spring of 1999 coming to IRiSS after five years of work fostering technology use in teaching and research with the Department of Psychology.
Projects Vijoy has worked on include the specification of laboratory testing room computing, audio, and video hardware, creating a department-wide survey development service for survey data collection via the Web, helping to create a multi-media lab where audio, video, and images can be edited and mastered onto CD or DVD, and implementing a web-based scheduling system for the participant pool used in the Introduction to Psychology Course (Psych1).
Within the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS), the University intends to establish a vibrant research community where the major issues of social science are addressed. Even while Stanford’s social science departments are extremely well regarded—all have high National Research Council rankings —social science research is undergoing a sea-change which demands new kinds of institutional structure and support for their continued success. It is the aim of the Institute to create a new model, in which we approach the social sciences in terms of the creation and dissemination of innovative multidisciplinary insights into complex problems. Explicitly modeled on research institutes in engineering and the natural sciences, where Stanford has built a reputation as a place where people make exciting discoveries in technology and medicine, IRiSS will advance ‘discovery research’ in areas that involve a mix of questions of psychology, sociology, economics, political science, anthropology and communication.